


The Twelve Year Old Terrorist

by StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese



Series: MISSING: Tales From the Life of a Private Investigator [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese/pseuds/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese
Summary: In retrospect, Luka should have known that his day was going to be terrible from the second he got on the bus.A mortal's perspective on what the "exploding bus scene" from the Lightning Thief must have looked like.
Series: MISSING: Tales From the Life of a Private Investigator [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911502
Comments: 4
Kudos: 111





	The Twelve Year Old Terrorist

In retrospect, Luka should have known that his day was going to be terrible from the second he got on the bus.

For starters, it smelled awful. All buses smelled a _little_ suspicious, but this one was just plain _ew_.

Secondly, it was a Monday, and no sane person _enjoyed_ Mondays.

Thirdly, he was going to Philadelphia, and it was a _long_ ride. Of course, the trip was to visit his boyfriend Anthony (who was currently taking care of his cancer-ridden father) and Luka planned on binging _Game of Thrones_ with him, eating popcorn, pizza with sausages and pepperoni, and mint-chocolate-chip ice cream. But even though he loved Anthony, Luka did not love the bus route to visit him. _The things I do for love,_ Luka thought, and snorted at his own private joke.

Fourthly, a friend of his in the police department– her name was Lisa– had asked him to look over a case for her. Was it illegal? Yes. Did that stress him out? Absolutely. But Luka trusted Lisa.

So here he was, sweating bullets, and desperately hoping nobody here knew he was now technically a criminal. He was supposed to be working on the case, but he had yet to make a dent in it. He had brought some of the paperwork on the bus, but looking down at it was making him nauseous. The missing people in question were Percy and Sally Jackson– nobody had seen hide nor hair of them since the pair had gone to Montauk for the weekend. Personally, Luka’s money was on Gabe Ugliano, the husband and stepfather, as having something to do with it. That guy was bad news– and Luka would know. All of his years as a private eye gave him a sort of sense for _those_ kinds of people, and they made his blood boil.

Finally, the bus got stuck in traffic somewhere around the Jersey area (ugh, _New Jersey_ ). Luka figured that if it got too long he could probably walk to a hotel and call Anthony from there, but that’s when an argument started up towards the front of the bus, and Luka paused. Maybe he should wait, just in case he needed to help break up a fistfight (an unfortunately common occurrence in his life).

Then he caught a glimpse of the people who were fighting, and blinked.

Were… were three old women fighting those two children?

What in the world? Who would do that?

Luka was about to speak up– he wasn’t sure what he would say yet, either “Hey, you three, act like adults”, or “Hey, kids, stop harassing those old women”, but he was sure he would figure it out. They were yelling at each other, saying something about a thing that was stolen.

And that’s when the bus launched itself off the road.

Luka screamed.

The kids screamed.

The other passengers screamed.

Even the bus driver screamed, which was definitely not reassuring.

“Stay on the road, you lunatic!” somebody shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Woah!” the driver yelled.

The bus suddenly jerked to the right– to the left– the right– the left–

Was… was the bus driver _steering without hands?_

No. No way. That was impossible. Right?

Who else was up there? Who could possibly be driving? Was the driver having a stroke? He must be having a stroke, or a heart attack, or something–

Luka stood up, ready to fight his way to the front of the bus, and was immediately thrown into the opposite window. His papers went flying.

_Whoops, there goes my classified information,_ he thought dizzily.

One of the kids up front was standing, clinging to one of the poles, and shouting something. Mercy? Was she asking the bus driver to stop? If so, that was a weird way to go about it. Or was it a name? Percy? 

Percy? Like the Harry Potter character? Who named their kid _Percy?_

Wait– could it be–

Luka snatched up a couple papers to try to get a good look at the picture of little Percy Jackson again, when he was once again thrown into the opposite wall.

_Well, that’s the last time I don’t wear a seatbelt on a bus._

Groaning, he decided to stay down for now, and looked back up at the front of the bus.

The girl– who couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old, maybe even twelve– looked vaguely familiar, but Luka couldn’t quite put a finger on where he’d seen her before. A newspaper article? His niece’s Little League championship? A milk carton, even?

He would hope he’d remember if she had been on a milk carton, but who knew? Maybe she just had one of those faces.

The bus slammed to a halt, everyone jerked forwards and hit the seats in front of them, and Luka leaped to his feet, beginning to herd the other passengers out the door.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted, making his way up the aisle and grabbing a boy’s arm to drag him along as he went. The boy yelped, and the vaguely-familiar girl next to him blurted out “Grover!” but Luka didn’t stop, pushing the girl along as well.

They all stampeded out of the bus and onto the gross, foul-smelling, dirty side-of-the-road patch of grass outside. One passenger, in her haste to get out, nearly stumbled straight into an abandoned shopping cart.

The last person to scramble out of the bus was a boy, with black hair and wide green eyes. He leaped out of the bus, yelling, and jumped to his feet with an unintelligible garble of words, perhaps in some other language.

The boy was holding something– a metallic-looking baseball bat. His eyes were wild. He looked dangerous, like somebody Luka absolutely did not want to cross.

A camera flashed, the boy blinked, and Luka did a quick double-take as the boy’s features softened and became more recognizable.

_Is that Percy goddamn Jackson?_

And that’s when the bus blew up.

As debris rained down around them and the three kids took off running, Luka could do nothing but stare at the exploded remains of the bus.

He was definitely going to have to find a payphone and tell Lisa that he has lost her papers, and that he had found the kid for her. And then immediately lost him.

_I’m going to be so late to see Anthony._

God, he hated Mondays.


End file.
